AITA for refusing to help my family clean up after Sunday lunch?

A Redditor shares frustration over a long-standing family tradition where only the women are expected to clean up after Sunday lunches at their grandparents’ house. Despite raising the issue in a family group chat and gaining support from some female relatives, the men refused to pitch in, leaving the Redditor feeling angry and refusing to help.

This decision led to backlash, with a cousin accusing them of being rude for leaving the work to others. Now, the Redditor wonders if they overreacted. Read the full story below.

‘ AITA for refusing to help my family clean up after Sunday lunch?’

I (19F) usually go with my parents and my brother to my grandparents house on Sunday for lunch along with other members of my family (an aunt, two uncles, two female cousins and two male cousins). Since I was little things have always been the same.

My grandfather cooks because my grandmother is in a wheelchair and cannot help him, we arrive and eat and then the women clean up. I always hated this because the moment we are done eating my aunt stands up and says “Girls, come and help us”.

So while we take away the dishes and wash them the men just sit there and talk, they don’t even make the effort of putting their fork and knife inside the plate when they are done eating, they just sit and wait for us to take it away like we are their servers. I help every time without saying anything because I don’t want to cause a scene even if it makes me really angry.

Last week I wrote a message in the family group chat saying that on sunday the men were going to help to clean up because they never do and my female cousins and my kin backed me up, but on sunday when we were done eating just the women got up as usual and my aunt called only for the girls to help.

I felt so angry that I just went to sit on the couch and declared that I was not going to move a finger until the men did. Obviously nobody did anything and I was furious.

That evening I got a call from my cousin (29F) saying that I was rude for refusing to help and leave them to do all the work, so I said that she never told this to her dad or any of my male cousins and hung up the call. Now I’m thinking that I might have gotten to angry and overreacted? Am I the a**hole?

Here’s what Redditors had to say:

EffectiveData6972 −  NTA. Of course the cleaning up needs to happen, and it’s not fair for your grandfather who cooked the meal to be left with an unclean kitchen. But it’s not Women’s Work, and it bugs me to no end when women perpetuate sexist BS like this. Talk to your grandfather and grandmother. Explain to them, see what they say.

They need to set the tone here. If you persist in eating their food without clearing up, you will be TA so prepare to not come to family meals, or volunteer other help around the house while you’re there, but you’re absolutely NTA for wanting a non-gendered division of labour.

KING_O_THE_PIRATES −  NTA – This outdated view on things and should be changed within all families. The only people who should be exempt from cleaning are your grandparents (one cooked and the other can’t). Everyone should work together to do it all. It’ll also be done a lot faster too that way

Stranger0nReddit −  NTA, The only people that shouldn’t have to clean up are your grandparents and anyone else who helped prepare the meal. Otherwise, you’re all capable of pitching in to clean up after yourselves. Gender shouldn’t be a factor. Your family needs to ditch the outdated gender roles.

At my family get togethers, everyone is responsible to clean up their own place setting (so plates, glasses, silverware, etc) and then we ALL pitch in for the rest of it. Men and women. Nobody complains, it gets done quicker and leaves more time to just enjoy each other’s company.

CuriousEmphasis7698 −  NTA. Unless the men all have two broken arms there is no reason, other than an out-dated sexist view that cleaning up is ‘women’s work’, that they can’t help out.

OutsidePerson5 −  NTA. In metafilter’s great emotional labor thread, Don Pepino had the best explanation for why your female relatives got mad at you instead of the men: It’s more like, “She thinks she’s better than this work. Well, s**t, I’m better than this work, too. Why can’t I not do it, too? Because of him.

He thinks he’s better than me. I have to do this so he doesn’t have to.” Somebody has to clean the damn table. As has been amply evidenced here, men will not clean the damn table. So if one woman refuses to clean the damn table, the other women have to spend more of their time cleaning the damn table than they otherwise would.

That’s not the main problem, though. That’s not the main reason why they hate her. The problem and the reason they hate her is that the one woman’s not playing the game makes the game obvious and makes everyone playing it have to look at it, and the game is scarily cruel and demeaning so that it hurts to see it.

Cleaning the table is bitchwork. If you do it, you’re a menial. By refusing to do it, your husband makes it clear he’s not a worthless person. He’s perfectly comfortable with you doing it, though. That shows you what he thinks of you.. […] So it is easier to hate the one woman who refuses to clean the table on Thanksgiving than to hate the man you live with who refuses to clean the table every night of your life because he doesn’t really think of you as a person.

Labradawgz90 −  NTA- I was the youngest in my family and I was the one to stand up to this outdated BS. I even stopped attending events because I wasn’t going to cook and then clean while the men sat on their asses.

All of the women in my family work full time jobs. Not only that, but I do everything my husband does. I use a chainsaw, run the tractor, chop wood, work on cars. My husband cooks a little. (I’m a better cook.) He cleans too. If no one stands up to the inequity, it will always continue.

diminishingpatience −  NTA. That evening I got a call from my cousin (29F) saying that I was rude for refusing to help and leave them to do all the work She should have called everyone who didn’t help.

EchoShades −  NTA. I totally get your frustration. Growing up, my family had similar outdated roles. It sucks when people don’t see the unfairness in it. Standing up for equality is important, even if it shakes things up a bit. Stick to your guns; change only happens when someone speaks up.

curly_spy −  NTAH. Do you have to go to these events? I would refuse to attend unless there is equal division of labor.

RepublicTop1690 −  NTA. And things can change, when some of the male relatives start the change. Had a male housemate years ago. Oldest of 3 boys in his family. Their mom did everything. One of the few times the 3 housemates (2 women, this guy) had dinner together, he got up from the table and started to walk away.

Other woman said “do you think those dishes are going to walk to the sink by themselves?” And that was the start of us teaching him how to adult. His middle brother joined the service. No one waited on him and he learned. Serviceman was home on leave and I was invited to join that family for dinner.

When folks were done eating, my housemate and his brother got up to clear the table. Then forced the youngest into the kitchen to learn how to do dishes. Youngest protested that mom always did that. And was shut down with “she’s your mother, not your maid. She cooked, we clean.” The mom just sat that, stunned. But they all learned how to adult, eventually.

Was the Redditor justified in taking a stand against an outdated family tradition, or did they overreact by refusing to help at all? How would you address an unequal division of labor in a family setting? Share your opinions below!